Environment

The French government plans next year to begin making heavy users of household and transport fuels bear more of the tax burden. President Nicolas Sarkozy is expected to say in coming weeks that such a shift is necessary to nudge French citizens toward cleaner alternatives.

The tax would reportedly start at about 14 euros (or $20) for each ton of CO2 emitted, and could rise to levels of around 100 euros ($143) for each ton by 2030. That could mean substantial increases in the price of gasoline and diesel, as well as a sizable jump in the cost of keeping homes warm.

Nudge French citizens? What is government doing nudging its citizens toward anything to do with their energy usage? Quite simply government, at least in France, has decided that citizens must conform to its priorities (proven or unproven) and thus uses its power to tax to “nudge” people into the behavior it prefers?

Is that a proper function of government? Only if you believe government is infallible and should be the arbiter of what constitutes the “proper” way of living. Trust me, such a belief has absolutely nothing to do with freedom, choice or liberty.

But skeptics say the idea may have less to do with clean energy, and more to do with a desire on the part of Mr. Sarkozy’s government to find new ways to keep the national debt in check.

Heh … the skeptics may be on to something. We have the same sort of problem in this country which is why I imply that cap-and-trade is only the beginning. Once implemented government will use the precedent (“we’re controlling industrial CO2 emission, now we need to control “private” CO2 emissions”) to tax citizens on their use. It’s all about revenue and this source is perfect – created, literally, out of thin air.

As usual, the socialists in France (and elsewhere) are without a clue:

In addition, members of the opposition Socialist party have slammed the plan, suggesting it would unfairly burden lower income citizens — particularly those who are obliged to use their cars.

Segolene Royal, a former presidential candidate, has instead called for direct taxes on gasoline and other energy companies.

Because everyone knows that a direct tax on “gasoline and other energy companies” would never be passed on to “lower income citizens” who are “obliged to use their cars” and “unfairly burden” them, would they?

A top environmental official of the Obama administration issued a statement Thursday apologizing for past incendiary statement and denying that he ever agreed with a 2004 petition on which his name appears, a petition calling for congressional hearings and an investigation by the New York Attorney General into “evidence that suggests high-level government officials may have deliberately allowed the September 11th attacks to occur.”

Van Jones, the Special Advisor for Green Jobs at the White House Council on Environmental Quality, is Number 46 of the petitioners from the so-called “Truther” movement which suggests that people in the administration of President George W. Bush “may indeed have deliberately allowed 9/11 to happen, perhaps as a pretext for war.”

In a statement issued Thursday evening Jones said of “the petition that was circulated today, I do not agree with this statement and it certainly does not reflect my views now or ever.”

He did not explain how his name came to be on the petition. A source said Jones did not carefully review the language in the petition before agreeing to add his name.

Jones’ statements are so laughable that one could be forgiven for thinking that this is a parody from The Onion (it’s not; I checked the URL … twice).

He and the Obama administration are really expecting us to believe that Jones didn’t know what he was signing? That just begs the question, what did he think it was? Why did Truther group come to him for a signature in the first place? What made them think he would sign it? Did they know of Jones’ apparent disdain for reading what he puts his name on and figure he would offer up his John Hancock without any issue? Or did they, being composed of several other statist weirdos (Cynthia McKinney, Howard Zinn), activists (Medea Benjamin and Jodie Evans of Code Pink), and radicals (Ed Asner, Ralph Nader), know full well that Jones would happily sign the petition because it fits in with his own radical views?

Don’t expect any answers to these questions to be forthcoming.

At this point, the White House isn’t answering any of these questions, but they will have a difficult time sticking with the “I didn’t read it” defense for very long. To be sure, lots of excuses will be offered up by the media in an attempt to provide cover for Obama’s administration, but this isn’t a story that can just go quietly away. They tried to do that with Rev. Wright, but the buzz from non-MSM sources kept it alive until Obama was forced to throw Wright under the bus (with his own grandma!). Expect the same here.

As Congress members slink back into Washington DC to get trauma treatment for their townhall wounds, a new Rasmussen poll indicates cap-and-trade legislation isn’t much more popular than health care insurance reform.

Nearly one adult in four — 24 percent — are not sure whether passage of the bill is a good idea — findings which reflect virtually the same results as in late June.

While that may not seem overwhelming, it changes dramatically when the question of cost to the person being polled is brought up:

On economic impact of the legislation, 56 percent said they are unwilling to pay more in taxes and utility costs to generate cleaner energy and fight global warming, the same number who expressed that opinion in June.

Another poll mirrored the results. Of those polled in a Washington Post/ABC poll 52% supported cap-and-trade legislation, until cost was introduced into the questioning:

When asked if a cap and trade program “significantly lowered greenhouse gases but raised your monthly electrical bill by 25 dollars a month” – then only 39 percent support cap and trade while 59 percent oppose it.

The Heritage Foundation modeled the current pending legislation and found that on average it would increase electricity prices by $32.67 a month. But that’s just part of it:

But that’s just one small chapter in the book on how an average family of four’s pocketbook would be hit. Cap and trade is a massive tax on energy across the board – so your electricity bills will rise and so will everything else – gasoline, natural gas, and home heating oil. Add it up and the family of four energy expenditures increase on average by $69 per month from 2012-2035. Because the carbon caps become more stringent in subsequent years, the costs are highest in 2035 at $103 per month in the form of direct higher energy prices.

And we’re still not done – also added into the mix are the indirect costs these price increases will bring:

The energy tax also hits producers. As the higher production costs ripple through the economy, the household pocketbooks get hit again and again when producers pass costs onto the consumers. If you look at the total energy tax from Waxman-Markey, it works out to an average of $2,979 annually from 2012-2035 for a household of four. By 2035 alone, the total cost is over $4,600.

Now that $32.65 a month for the family of four has grown to $248.25 brought on solely by the imposition of cap-and-trade. Add to that the cost of the proposed health care insurance reform, the bailouts, the unstimulating “stimulus” and the pork laden emergency spending bill, plus a 10 year budget that puts us 9 trillion further in debt and you can begin to understand why the American people are angry and the clueless Congress and administration are seeking trauma care.

Like one woman said at one of the townhall meetings, echoing Adm. Yamamoto’s WWII quote, “I think you’ve awakened a sleeping giant”.

I certainly hope so. And if so, hopefully cap-and-trade will go the way of the Dodo bird, and become an extinct idea. Cap-and-trade is based on dubious and unsubstantiated science and it is obviously detrimental to the economic health of this nation. It should be abandoned immediately.

Here’s what Gallup found: The number of Americans who say the media have exaggerated global warming jumped to a record 41 percent in 2009, up from 35 percent a year ago. The most marked increase came among political independents, whose ranks of doubters swelled from 33 percent to 44 percent. Republican doubters grew from 59 percent to 66 percent, while Democratic skeptics stayed at around 20 percent.

What’s more, fewer Americans believe the effects of global warming have started to occur: 53 percent see signs of a hotter planet, down from 61 percent in 2008. Global warming placed last among eight environmental concerns Gallup asked respondents to rank, with water pollution landing the top spot.

Another recent Gallup study found that, for the first time in 25 years of polling, more Americans care about economic growth than the environment. Just 42 percent of people surveyed said the environment takes precedence over growth, while 51 percent asserted expansion carries more weight. That reverses results from 2008, when 49 percent of respondents said the environment was paramount and 42 percent said economic growth came first. In 1985, the poll’s first year, 61 percent placed a bigger priority on the environment, while 28 percent ranked economic growth highest.

Scientists have begun to push back against those who have been claiming “consensus” for so long. And, Americans are simply becoming more informed about the matter. Part of that is the effect of the new media which has broken the monopoly hold of the mass media’s ability to shape public opinion. As the poll points out, Americans increasingly think the media is exaggerating the problem. That skepticism has to be based in something, and the only media carrying the skeptical side of the argument is the new media.

Obviously, since the financial meltdown, priorities have also changed. While AGW was apparently never a high priority among environmental priorities, it is dead last now. That’s again because people are becoming more informed about the economic impact of the draconian legislative measures being touted as a solution. And as time goes by, and there is more of a focus put on cap-and-trade legislation, I expect the numbers in opposition to go up even further.

Naturally the opposition disagrees and cites polls from Pew and the National Wildlife Federation that they claim contradict Gallup (no date for those two polls is given). But as you recall, Rasmussen had a very recent poll which had similar results to the Gallup poll.

The radical agenda is in trouble, folks. Whether that means Democrats will “listen” as they claim they do, is another matter entirely. I fully expect them to attempt to ram both health care and cap-and-trade through. But that doesn’t mean we have to give them a pass if they do. Be your “un-American” best and tell them loudly and strongly that cap-and-trade is not a good thing for the US and is not something that should be passed while the science of AGW is decidedly unproven.

I have not posted much lately. Busy. Very busy. I don’t see how McQ does it. He’s a machine.

But I have been paying attention, and I must say Obama is as amusing during his first six months as I had hoped, and maybe more. Here’s a brief summary of where he’s at as far as I’m concerned, categorized into various types of success and failures on the political front.

Apparently it is getting a little hot in the scientific community when it comes to AGW and skepticism. And it is the skeptics who are firing the broadsides. Melanie Phillips brings us the latest:

More and more scientists have just about had it up to here with the rubbish being put out as the ‘consensus’ on man-made global warming. Marc Morano reports how members of the American Chemical Society (ACS) have risen in revolt against the group’s editor-in-chief — with demands for his removal — after an editorial appeared claiming ‘the science of anthropogenic climate change is becoming increasingly well established.’

The editorial claimed the ‘consensus’ view was growing ‘increasingly difficult to challenge, despite the efforts of diehard climate-change deniers.’ The editor now admits he is ‘startled’ by the negative reaction from the group’s scientific members.

His readers had responded as you see in these two representative replies:

ACS member scientist Dr. Howard Hayden, a Physics Professor Emeritus from the University of Connecticut: ‘Baum’s remarks are particularly disquieting because of his hostility toward skepticism, which is part of every scientist’s soul. Let’s cut to the chase with some questions for Baum: Which of the 20-odd major climate models has settled the science, such that all of the rest are now discarded? […] Do you refer to ‘climate change’ instead of ‘global warming’ because the claim of anthropogenic global warming has become increasingly contrary to fact?’

William E. Keller wrote: ‘However bitter you (Baum) personally may feel about CCDs (climate change deniers), it is not your place as editor to accuse them—falsely—of nonscientific behavior by using insultingly inappropriate language. […] The growing body of scientists, whom you abuse as sowing doubt, making up statistics, and claiming to be ignored by the media, are, in the main, highly competent professionals, experts in their fields, completely honorable, and highly versed in the scientific method—characteristics that apparently do not apply to you.’

Some pretty heavy shots across the bow. I’d love to see if Baum answers the two questions Dr. Hayden posed (especially the first).

ACS isn’t the only “revolt” that is taking place among scientists:

On May 1 2009, the American Physical Society (APS) Council decided to review its current climate statement via a high-level subcommittee of respected senior scientists. The decision was prompted after a group of 54 prominent physicists petitioned the APS revise its global warming position. The 54 physicists wrote to APS governing board: ‘Measured or reconstructed temperature records indicate that 20th – 21st century changes are neither exceptional nor persistent, and the historical and geological records show many periods warmer than today.’

The petition signed by the prominent physicists, led by Princeton University’s Dr. Will Happer, who has conducted 200 peer-reviewed scientific studies. The peer-reviewed journal Nature published a July 22, 2009 letter by the physicists persuading the APS to review its statement. In 2008, an American Physical Society editor conceded that a ‘considerable presence’ of scientific skeptics exists.

In addition, in April 2009, the Polish National Academy of Science reportedly ‘published a document that expresses skepticism over the concept of man-made global warming.’ An abundance of new peer-reviewed scientific studies continue to be published challenging the UN IPCC climate views.

I bring these sorts of examples up over and over again because it has become obvious that there is absolutely no scientific “consensus” concerning AGW – none. And those who continue to contend there is are, in fact, the real deniers.

The hottest year on record was 1998, and the relatively cool years since have led to some global warming sceptics claiming that temperatures have levelled off or started to decline. But new research firmly rejects that argument.

The research, to be published in Geophysical Research Letters, was carried out by Judith Lean, of the US Naval Research Laboratory, and David Rind, of Nasa’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies.

The work is the first to assess the combined impact on global temperature of four factors: human influences such as CO2 and aerosol emissions; heating from the sun; volcanic activity and the El Niño southern oscillation, the phenomenon by which the Pacific Ocean flips between warmer and cooler states every few years.

The analysis shows the relative stability in global temperatures in the last seven years is explained primarily by the decline in incoming sunlight associated with the downward phase of the 11-year solar cycle, together with a lack of strong El Niño events. These trends have masked the warming caused by CO2 and other greenhouse gases.

Three Australasian scientists have published a study in the Journal of Geophysical Research claiming that virtually none of the observed temperature increases in the Earth’s atmosphere in recent years can be attributed to man-made factors.

And to what did the 3 scientists attribute recent warming?

“The surge in global temperatures since 1977 can be attributed to a 1976 climate shift in the Pacific Ocean that made warming El Niño conditions more likely than they were over the previous 30 years and cooling La Niña conditions less likely” de Freitas said.

“We have shown that internal global climate-system variability accounts for at least 80% of the observed global climate variation over the past half-century. It may even be more if the period of influence of major volcanoes can be more clearly identified and the corresponding data excluded from the analysis,” he added.

Again, what was it the scientists the Guardian are trumpeting included in their analysis?

“…volcanic activity and the El Niño southern oscillation…”

And the sun – something we’ve been pointing out for a while has a huge impact on heating or cooling on the earth. It has also been very quiet for a few years.

We have obvious agreement between the two studies that three natural activities over which man has absolutely no control are driving the climate. And the Guardian gives us nothing – absolutely nothing – that supports the AGW connection which it implies the inclusion of man-made CO2 emissions and aerosols. No percentage of cause or contribution to the warming, no idea if the inclusion has any effect at all, nothing. The Australians reached pretty much the same conclusion but found no connection with man-made emissions.

One final word – I’m not a “global warming” skeptic. The globe warms and cools. Its a natural thing that the globe has been cycling through since its formation.

I’m an AGW skeptic. And this study does nothing to change that. In fact, it reinforces what the Australians did. The globe my very well warm in the next 5 years. But I still am not seeing anything that definitively links that to man. I’m seeing a lot that links it to nature though.

Apparently the world went through some global warming (most know it as the Medieval Warm Period) roughly between AD1100 and 1500 that allowed the Inca Empire to rise and spread. And note, there was no “A” in that “GW” at that time. In fact the temperature rose several degrees during that period. The Times chooses to characterize the 400 years as a “spell of good weather”. But the last 20 years of more current time with a net zero degrees of warming? Gloom and doom.

And let there be no question about it, that 400 year “spell of good weather” was the most significant factor in the rise of the Inca empire:

“Yes, they were highly organised, and they had a sophisticated hierarchical system, but it wouldn’t have counted a jot without being underpinned by the warming of the climate,” says Dr Alex Chepstow-Lusty, a palaeo-ecologist from the French Institute for Andean Studies in Lima, Peru.

The study’s authors say that the findings have important implications for Peru and other countries facing the prospect of the most extreme shifts in climate because of global warming. For many countries, the prospect of warming is unwelcome. However, with the correct landmanagement techniques some of these countries might be able to turn a warmer climate to their advantage.

Well assuming that the rest of the world went through the same sort of warming over that 400 years (and yes, it did) and we somehow survived and apparently thrived, it would seem that “other countries” facing the “unwelcome” prospect of warming may want to reassess the whole concept, doesn’t it?

I mean if scientific findings have any weight with the AGW crowd and all.

Three Australasian scientists have published a study in the Journal of Geophysical Research claiming that virtually none of the observed temperature increases in the Earth’s atmosphere in recent years can be attributed to man-made factors.

Ummm … sure am wantin’ me some of that cap-and-trade now. As anyone should be able to figure out by now, the science is anything but settled concerning AGW.

Their research says that it is the El Nino-Southern Oscillation that pretty much has its way with temperature. And, the claim, volcanoes have a pretty significant impact on cooling.

“The surge in global temperatures since 1977 can be attributed to a 1976 climate shift in the Pacific Ocean that made warming El Niño conditions more likely than they were over the previous 30 years and cooling La Niña conditions less likely” de Freitas said.

“We have shown that internal global climate-system variability accounts for at least 80% of the observed global climate variation over the past half-century. It may even be more if the period of influence of major volcanoes can be more clearly identified and the corresponding data excluded from the analysis,” he added.

Their conclusion?

“Overall the results suggest that the Southern Oscillation exercises a consistently dominant influence on mean global temperature, with a maximum effect in the tropics, except for periods when equatorial volcanism causes ad hoc cooling.”

And man?

Not so much.

I’m sure our resident AGW believers will troop in to tell us how this is obviously not anything that “real science” would advance – except this is real science, with real scientists and a peer-reviewed study.

A bit of ego, a little dab of moral vanity, a smidge of hubris all driven by an agenda and you have the perfect definition of the political class worldwide. Of course I understate the smidges, bits and dabs by quite a bit. But that class has a problem. Other than boring economic stuff they are apparently lacking a great moral cause. So, it appears, they’ve decided to make one up with predicable results.

Dominic Lawson brings us up to date with the goings on in the UK beginning with helping us understand where the “green” movement has gotten them:

I was irresistibly reminded of this by Ed Miliband, the energy secretary, in his launch of plans to cut carbon emissions by switching to “renewables” for more than 30% of our energy use. This, he claimed, would “rise to the moral challenge of climate change”.

Miliband is of the generation of politicians struggling to find a great moral cause. Earlier in the Labour administration Tony Blair thought he had found it with wars of choice far from home, but that has, to put it mildly, lost its lustre. Now it is the “war against climate change”, given additional moral potency by the notion that the greatest concentration of sufferers from global rising temperatures would be among the world’s poorest.

Given the mostly positive press the fulminations of one Al Gore has received, what pol worth his salt could resist the call to save the world. “Go Green” young man and don’t dally because the earth has a fever!

And so Britain has tried to lead the effort. With high flying rhetoric and an aim to save Africa (really? Yup, so says Lawson), British politicans have bravely decided to throttle back their emissions and, apparently, kill their steel industry. Of course other than see the last vestiges of that industry leave forever, Lawson wonders, in the big scheme of things, if it’s worth it:

The UK is responsible for less than 2% of global carbon emissions – a figure set to fall sharply, regardless of what we do, as a result of the startlingly rapid industrial-isation of countries such as China and India: each year the increase in Chinese CO2 emissions alone is greater than those produced by the entire British economy. On the fashionable assumption that climate change is entirely driven by CO2 emissions, the effect on global temperatures of Britain closing every fossil fuel power station would be much smaller than the statistical margin of error: in effect, zero.

You see, Lawson, like many, has figured out the unfashionable truth – unless the big 3rd world emitters play ball, whatever dinky emitters like the UK do won’t amount to any net change. Whether or not you believe in AGW or not, running your economy on the shoals for no net gain seems something only a politican would do. And you’re right.

But those great moral crusades are beckoning and the political flesh is weak. Who wants to show up and serve their time in the spotlight with nothing but mundane governing to do. Politicians are driven to make a difference:

Gordon Brown claims: “Britain is leading the world in the battle against climate change.” Such remarks are regarded as absurd in the chancelleries of Europe: if you do take as a measure of such commitment the proportion of domestic energy already supplied by renewables, the UK occupies 25th place in the European Union league table, above only Malta and Luxembourg.

Never the less, “leading” certainly has had an effect, at least domestically. With a yawning energy gap promising huge problems in he very near future, the UK is leading by committing itself to 7,000 offshore wind generators.

Two problems with that. One they should have learned from Germany:

Indeed, Paul Golby, who runs the British operations of E.ON, Europe’s biggest wind-power producer, has told the government that a 90% fossil fuel or nuclear back-up will be needed for any of the National Grid’s future wind-power capacity. As Martin Fuchs, his German boss, pointed out: “The wind, sadly, does not blow where large quantities of power are required . . . on September 12 last year wind power contributed 38% of our grid power requirements at all times, but on September 30 the figure went down to 0.2%.”

Yes that’s right – wind is so unreliable that it must be backed up with more conventional methods of power generation up to the 90% mark. And:

The powerful wind-turbine lobby in Germany constantly harps on about the number of jobs “created” by its subsidised investment, quite ignoring the number of jobs destroyed by high-cost energy, or indeed the greater number of jobs that could be created if the same amounts were invested in more profitable activities. This is why the Bremen Energy Institute argues that “wind energy macro-economically has a negative employment impact”.

Peachy. Germany isn’t the only one that has learned “green” means fewer jobs, not more. Spain has also learned that lesson. A study of what has happened in Spain since it took essentially the same path as the UK in 2000 yielded these results:

* For every green job financed by Spanish taxpayers, 2.2 real jobs were lost as an opportunity cost;
* 9 out of 10 green jobs created by Spain over the past 10 years are no longer in existence today;
* Since 2000, Spain has spent €571,138 ($753,778) to create each “green job,” including subsidies of more than €1 million ($1,319,783) per wind industry job;
* Those programs resulted in the destruction of nearly 113,000 jobs elsewhere in the economy and;
* Each “green” megawatt installed destroyed 5.39 jobs in non-energy sectors of the Spanish economy.”

And what about all that wonderful green energy promised by the UK wind machines? Well, unfortunately it’s very expensive:

Miliband claimed last week that the result of his proposals would be an increase in costs to energy users of about 17%. However, the business and enterprise department admitted last year that Britain’s existing “climate policies” – even before Miliband’s latest Big New Idea – would add an extra 55% to energy bills. It’s obvious where this will lead: to the exit from Britain (and, indeed, Europe) of much of what remains of energy-intensive manufacturing industry – the euphemistic jargon term is “carbon leakage”.

Sure enough, that’s precisely what is happening:

Jeremy Nicholson, the director of the Energy Intensive Users Group, which represents such industries as steel and aluminium, is exasperated beyond measure: “A future administration will have to say in public what ministers and their officials already admit in private, that the renewables target is neither practical nor affordable. Outsourcing our emissions is not a solution to a global problem. Politicians need to understand that unilateral action will come at a terrible cost in terms of UK manufacturing jobs, investment and export revenue, for no discernible environmental gain – is that really what they want?”

Apparently so, since that is precisely the road the US and UK, without either China, India or the rest of the 3rd world, is headed.

What about the “exasperated” steel and aluminum industuries in Britain?

Thousands of British steelworkers and their families are holding a protest march Saturday in a town in northeast England where the looming closure of a Corus steel plant threatens to throw families into poverty.

[…]

Closure is expected to result in the loss of 2,000 jobs at the plant, and another 1,000 elsewhere.

But others say the status of the plant, known as Teesside Cast Products, as one of the main regional employers means its closure will result in a loss of local high street spending that could balloon into nearly 10,000 job losses.

Aluminum too:

On the day Nicholson said this to me, last Thursday, Anglesey Aluminium, the biggest consumer of electricity in Wales, announced that it would cease production, precisely because it could see no prospect of signing up to a long-term supply of electricity at a rate at which it could make a profit. And on the day of Miliband’s announcement, a group of Labour MPs presented a “Save Our Steel” petition, saying: “We need to make sure we act before the light goes out.”

It may well be that the English steel mills will become unable to compete globally, even at current domestic energy prices; but deliberately to make them uncompetitive is industrial vandalism – and even madness when the consequence of Miliband’s Martin Luther King moment may be the lights going out not just for producers but for all of us in our homes. This is worse than a futile gesture: it is immoral.

Indeed. But the moral vanity and hubris involved in the belief one is “saving the world” apparently trumps any concern for the lives of others and the reality such policy brings in its execution.

The immoral part, as it pertains to the US, is we know this from watching what has happened in Europe and elsewhere. Yet apparently, if the administration has its way, we’re going to see the same immorality visited on us here shortly.